Labour needs to become the party of conviction

by Gino D’Oca

It is promising to hear some of the candidates for the Labour leadership describing the decision to go to war in Iraq as a misjudgement. Of course, apologising or expressing regret is never enough in itself unless it amends future behaviour and decision making. For Labour, such candour must now form the foundation of a deeper analysis of where the party will position itself on foreign affairs and military intervention, and not simply serve as a vacuous mea culpa to woo former voters and disenfranchised party faithful.

Another leitmotif of this early stage of the leadership contest is the ‘importance of listening’. Again, all very true; but this aspiration will need to be followed through with structural reforms within the party to promote genuine policy debate, in addition to a re-engagement with the grass roots and the wider progressive movement, many of whose achievements at a local level are significant. This crucial interaction became strained as a result of Blair’s project to reinvent Labour as an election-winning machine at the expense of remaining true to, and in tune with the party’s roots and core values.

So yes, it is clear that some of Labour’s failures while in office were indeed caused by a disengagement and aloofness on the part of the leadership. However, beyond simply ‘listening’ and ‘re-engaging’, how else will Labour need to change?

I want to see more ‘conviction politics’. We need a Labour Party and leadership that possess the conviction to hold bold, even radical, positions, as well as the drive to get out and convince the wider public in a genuine battle of ideas. No more reducing policy debate down to the narrowest and most trivialised of issues. This only plays into the hands of those who have least to bring to the table – the extremists and opportunists.

Some might suggest, for instance, that Blair’s justification for the war in Iraq was classic conviction politics. I would disagree. The leadership feared initiating any genuine debate on the arguments for and against the intervention; so instead chose to force home a series of delusional and misleading premises to support its casus belli. This was both cowardly and authoritarian.

Labour must not repeat these same disgraceful mistakes. Yes, the party must be bold and enter fearlessly into realistic and honest debate about the most significant and contentious issues facing society (immigration, fair taxation and so on); but equally it must give party members a platform to allow their voices to be heard – time to reclaim the party conference, for instance – and keep the long-held principles of equality, fairness and social justice at the heart of all future policing making.

Only then might we witness the start of a genuine ‘new politics’.

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